


but to cry in front of you

by socallmedaisy



Category: Glee
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-11-28
Updated: 2012-11-28
Packaged: 2017-11-19 18:11:02
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,232
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/576186
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/socallmedaisy/pseuds/socallmedaisy
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Brittany isn't the only person she misses from Lima. (Set during Glease.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	but to cry in front of you

**Author's Note:**

> for ashleigh, because she asked.

She’s coming out of the locker room after morning practice when her phone starts chirping in her bag and she only hesistates for a second when she sees Finn’s name on the screen.

“Hey Santana,” Finn says when she answers. “How are you?”

“Can we cut to the chase? I have a class to get to.” She doesn’t but there’s something about the nervousness in his voice that makes her want to hang up.

“Um. So I have a favor to ask,” there’s a pause and she rolls her eyes even though he can’t see.

“So ask,” she snaps, jogging across the road in front of her dorm and fishing into her pocket for her key.

Finn takes a breath and the words come out all in a rush. “Do you want to come back to McKinley and fill in as Rizzo in Grease? It’s last minute, I know, but Unique had to pull out and—”

“You had me at Rizzo,” she says, and bites her lip to keep from asking who Brittany is.

+

This wasn’t a good idea. 

She’s not in high school anymore, and it was bad enough the last time she went back pretending like nothing changed when everything had. She’s supposed to have put the singing and acting and dancing behind her, like she’s supposed to have put the hurting the one person she cares about the most behind her, and god knows how Brittany is going to feel seeing her again.

And she has no idea who’s playing Kenickie, and she is not kissing Puckerman the second, even in a play. Kissing the first one was bad enough.

The traffic’s terrible all the way back to Lima—like it knows better and is trying to warn her off, and maybe she should listen—but she just turns the Grease soundtrack up on her ipod and tries to sing along instead. 

It’s easy enough until she gets to her big solo, and then she skips it quickly as the traffic starts to move around her.

There are worst things she could do, all right.

+

This wasn’t a good idea, but when she sees Brittany’s face in the choir room after school she sort of forgets to care.

+

They’re doing a full dress rehearsal the next day, and then the show the day after, and if it was any other part in any other show she would have said no, Brittany or no Brittany.

Well, maybe that’s a lie. But she definitely would have thought about it for more than five seconds.

Her mom looks confused when she walks through the door with bag of clothes over her shoulder, and she just shrugs and says, “I’m pinch hitting as Rizzo in the musical,” like it’s no big deal and she didn’t just skip out on going to class for three days.

It’s not like anyone would miss her there, anyway.

Her mom looks at her for a long time before she says, “And who’s Brittany playing?” and she just hikes her bag higher on her back and wordlessly stomps up the stairs.

+

It’s weird getting up and driving herself back to McKinley the next day, like she’s going back in time even if she isn’t wearing the uniform anymore.

Or at least it would be, but Brittany gets out of Sugar’s car across the parking lot while Santana sits in hers and watches, her hands twisting around the wheel uselessly.

+

“Yo Rizz,” Sam calls when she gets to the auditorium. He cocks his hips to the side and pulls a comb out of his back pocket, running it through his hair quickly before pocketing it again. He’s got a tube of paper rolled up and stuck behind his ear like a cigarette and the collar of his leather jacket popped up around his ears, but on him it manages to look good, in a dorky sort of way. “What’s up.”

“Peachy keen, jellybean,” Santana says, in her best Rizzo voice, and then they’re both laughing as she takes two steps towards him and he catches her in his arms. He’s still solid and familiar and _Sam_ , and she lets herself cling to him for a minute before she lets go. “How’s it going Sam?”

“Same old,” he says with a shrug. “Thanks for stepping in.”

“And miss the chance to play your girl?” she drawls. She doesn’t say the _again_ but she knows they’re both thinking it. “Wouldn’t miss it.”

“I know you missed these guppy lips,” he says, shoving her good naturedly. She shoots him a glare as she nearly spills the giant cup of coffee she’d picked up from Lima Bean on the way in, and he just shakes his head and grins, and honestly, why is Sam Evans the only person in the world that that glare doesn’t work on? 

Or, well, not the only person.

She’s about to answer him when she catches sight of blonde hair in her peripheral vision, and her breath catches as she half turns to see, like maybe thinking about Brittany summoned her somehow. It’s just that Kitty girl, glaring at them both like she’s measuring them up before she smiles falsely sweet and disappears behind the curtain, and her heart sinks because it’s not who she thought it was.

“Yeah, you know it, Trouty,” she says faintly after a moment, trying to ignore the flash of concern on his face when she turns back to him.

+

She runs into Brittany after Tina finishes adjusting her costume. Like literally runs into her, because Brittany’s carrying a pile of fake hubcaps and can’t see over the top.

She drops them all over the floor with an, “Oops,” and after shifting awkwardly for a moment Santana crouches down to help her gather them up without looking at her.

“Sorry,” she says, softly, and it’s only then that she catches Brittany’s eye, her expression turning more serious, the same way she used to look junior year gazing across at her from the other side of the choir room. She doesn’t want to make that comparison because it just makes her want to apologize again and again and again, for the rest of her life maybe.

Like she could ever be done apologizing to Brittany. 

“Hey,” Brittany says softly, half a smile tugging at her lips, and it’s more than Santana can stand.

She swallows and looks away from her, trying to clear her throat. She still manages to see the smile fall off of Brittany’s face out of the corner of her eye. “I’m so sorry, Britt.”

She’s not talking about the hubcaps anymore.

“Santana—” Brittany starts to say, but Santana just shoves the props into her arms, Brittany adjusting her grip and rebalancing on her knees quickly, and turns away without giving her chance to finish.

Brittany calls her name after her but she ignores it, wrapping her arms around herself as she blinks her eyes quickly, her vision blurring. She wishes she wasn’t getting so good at running away, but then she guesses she’s had a lot of practice over the years.

+

“She’s doing okay you know,” Sam says later, when they’re watching Brittany go over some of the choreography with Joe and Jake from the side of the stage, Santana’s eyes latched onto her.

“I didn’t ask,” Santana says quickly, just to stop herself from saying more.

Sam puts his arm around her, his hand settling on her shoulder warmly, and doesn’t say anything else.

+

Artie asks her to run through There Are Worse Things I Could Do before they start rehearsal and she nails it, obviously.

Sam cheers while everyone else claps politely and she bows, and it’s only when she straightens up that she sees Brittany turning away and disappearing into the darkness at the side of the stage, her arms wrapped around herself tightly, like she’s trying to hold herself together.

+

“Just go and talk to her,” Sam says, when they’re sitting on the edge of the stage, watching Artie finish giving Marley and Kitty notes. They’re waiting for Jake and Ryder to bring the cardboard cutout car up from backstage so they can practice Greased Lightning.

“She doesn’t want to talk to me,” Santana says, kicking her feet against the stage.

“Dude, she always wants to talk to you. It’s you,” he says, and she just shrugs and kicks her heels back against the wood again, listening to the dull noise they make.

The thud is kind of weirdly satisfying.

“She’s better off without me,” she says, the words almost getting stuck in her throat. She watches Brittany laugh while she helps Sugar with her bright pink wig down in the seats, feeling like some creeper because she doesn’t have any right to see her be happy anymore. 

“Okay, what's with you tonight, huh? You got the personality of a wet mop!” Sam says, waving his script at her, open at that scene, and she just wraps her arms around herself and shakes her head.

“Not now, Sam,” she says, twisting away from him a little, and he just sighs and slumps next to her.

“Yeah,” he says, after a minute. “Okay.” Ryder and Jake have appeared with the car, so he climbs to his feet slowly. “I just think maybe— maybe you don’t have to be as hard on yourself as you are,” he says, standing over her.

She hates people telling her how she should feel—like they could ever really know what this feels like— but it’s different coming from Sam, like he doesn’t care if she listens or not, he just feels like he has to say it. Kenickie was never so sweet.

She sighs and looks up at him, forcing herself to meet his eyes. “Thanks a lot, kid,” she says, and a smile creeps onto his face at one of Kenickie’s lines being said back to him.

“Any time,” he says, as he goes to jump on top of the car. She doesn’t know how he manages to do a Stockard Channing impression with two words, but he does.

She rolls her eyes as he nearly falls off the car and Joe steadies him, then twists back around to face out into the auditorium again, her eyes finding Brittany almost immediately. Sugar’s disappeared, leaving Brittany alone, her feet kicked up on the back of the chair in front of her, her dress for the hand jive scene bunching around her legs. 

After a moment, Brittany raises her hand slowly, in this half wave that she looks like she regrets almost as soon as she starts it, a frown deepening on her face that Santana wishes she could smooth away. 

Her chest tightens painfully when she realizes that she put it there.

“Rizzo!” Artie calls, breaking the moment, and she blinks quickly, pushing herself up and scrambling to her feet without looking back.

+

They run through Look At Me I’m Sandra Dee first, and it’s fun for a minute, until she spots Brittany watching from the side of the stage again, looking directly at her. There’s this part of the choreography—that Mike taught her, glancing sideways at Brittany as he’d stepped up to do it—where she’s supposed to mime kicking Sam in the chest when he kneels in front of her, only she’s so busy looking at Brittany that she kicks him for real and he goes sprawling, sliding across the stage.

“Ow,” he says, shaking his head where he lies on the floor.

Everyone else has stopped, Marley gasping as Joe offers Sam a hand up. “Are you okay, bro?” he says, completely earnest in that weird way he has, like Sam had fallen off the stage or something. Sam ignores his hand and points past him to Santana instead, a glare she recognizes as pretend on his face.

“That was rude,” he says, and she looks suitably contrite as he pulls himself to his feet, just to avoid having to look at Brittany, still in the wings.

+

As far as she’s concerned the best part of the stage show over the movie is Rizzo’s version of Greased Lightning, and she’s been waiting to sing it all day, looking forward to being able to tease Sam about something without having to think up the lines herself.

It doesn’t stop her from ad libbing things about his lips during some of the dialogue though. Marley looks genuinely shocked the first time she does it, while Tina breaks character to laugh at the offended look on Sam’s face. 

“No improv, Santana,” Artie calls up from out in the audience, but Mike’s sitting next to him with his hand over his mouth and she’s pretty sure he’s laughing too.

“Why are you guys laughing, that was _harsh_ ,” Jake says when Sam starts to smile and lunges forward to make a grab for Santana. She skips backwards and smirks, unable to stop herself from laughing, even if it comes out kind of like a shriek.

Marley’s still looking at them wide-eyed, clinging to Ryder’s arm as Sam grabs for her again, and she dodges behind them as Artie starts yelling at them to stop it. She doesn’t care how childish it is, or that there’s a bunch of sophomores staring at her like she’s lost her mind, she just keeps dodging Sam and grinning, calling out insults as she goes. 

It’s fine, until she overestimates how much of an advantage Sam has with his height and he grabs her easily, wrapping his arms around her and lifting her off her feet.

“Please don’t unhinge your jaw and eat me,” she laughs, and he just shakes his head as he pulls her closer, hugging her so hard she actually squeaks.

“I missed you too, Santana,” he says, right into her ear, before he sets her down. 

+

They’re on a break, and she’s trying to find Tina to ask if she can adjust her skirt a little, when she hears Marley and that kid from Vocal Adrenaline last year—Unique?—fixing their make-up in the mirrors.

“How’s the new Rizzo?” Unique asks, her voice tight, and Santana sees Marley glance at her apologetically in the mirror before she answers.

“She’s really good, I’m so sorry.”

“Whatever. Unique is over it,” she announces, with a little handwave as she drops her mascara into her purse.

“I don’t think she likes Sam though,” Marley adds, after a second, and then startles and turns around when Santana can’t stop herself from laughing.

+

Sam kisses her like she’s his elderly grandmother, his lips tightly closed, his whole body leaning away from her, and she’s doesn’t think she’s ever been so offended. 

“Are you serious?” she asks him, when he pulls back and tries to go on with the scene. She might care less what guys think of her, but he could at least do her the common courtesy of acting like he thinks she’s hot. 

She thought they were _friends_.

Sam glances out at Artie and then back to her as his eyebrows scrunch in confusion. “Did I do something wrong?” he asks, his hand rubbing at the back of his head self-consciously.

“What am I, a leper,” she says, leaning in to him even as he tries to lean back. “Rachel would be trying to give you so many notes right now, Trouty.”

“But I thought you— It just says we have to kiss,” he says. He still looks kind of terrified, which is basically what makes her smirk and lean even closer, stepping into his personal space.

“You call that a kiss?” she says. By this point, everyone else is just looking backwards and forwards between them like they’re watching a tennis match, even if they’re not quite sure what’s going on.

“What do you—” he starts to say, and she just leans in and meets his lips to get him to stop. She’s kissed him before, of course, but it’s not like it matters now, so she just makes sure to make it as over the top as possible, even if he doesn’t really kiss her back with as much enthusiasm.

(Which, rude. She’s still hot even if she’s not into him.)

She almost manages to dip him backwards—okay, almost, he’s really too heavy for her to hold up—before he pushes her back, his eyes wide when she pulls away. She just smiles innocently as she listens to Jake murmur a, “Damn,” from his place over in the wings, and waits for Sam to speak his next line as Kenickie.

It takes him a minute, but he gets there eventually.

+

“I could have been Kenickie,” she hears Jake mutter to Joe as she and Sam take their turn to wait backstage, and Sam just swipes him round the head as he goes past, without saying a word.

+

She offers to do a Lima Bean run for everyone at dinner time because she has no reason to stay at school if she doesn’t want to anymore, and Sam volunteers to come with her to help her carry, even though he’s not supposed to.

“We can pretend like we’re spies,” he says, as he creeps out of the doors behind her and into the parking lot, drawing attention to himself more than he’s actually hiding. 

How she ever ended up friends with such a dork is beyond her.

“Go go gadget car keys,” he says, tugging them out of her hand and pressing the button as he aims them at the car like a gun. 

Seriously.

“Just get in the car,” she says, rolling her eyes, and then laughs when he jumps in front of her to get the door for her.

“Your chariot, milady,” he says, with his Kenickie swagger, and she pushes past him, all Rizzo as she climbs inside.

+

They don’t really say much on the way, just listen to the radio until Gangnam Style comes on and she rolls her eyes and moves to turn it off.

Sam slaps her hand away and starts doing his best to dance in his seat when they hit the chorus, wiggling his eyebrows at her as he sings, “Hey, sexy lady.” He stomps his feet against the floor as he rocks his hips and she’s never seen anything so ridiculous.

“Even if I was straight, I would not have sex with you based on what your hips are doing right now,” she says, completely serious, and then bursts out laughing at the look on his face.

+

He’s clutching the coffees in this weird sort of stack as they drive back, and she makes sure to go more slowly so they don’t spill on him. Not that she’s that concerned for his well-being, but he has to touch her with those hands during the show, and she doesn’t want his gross burnt fingers all over her.

He’s still humming Gangnam Style under his breath, because they left the radio off and she laughs when he bounces his feet against the floor again. He spins to look at her, grinning himself, and says, “You know it’s good to see you smile again.”

“Shut up, I’m always a ray of sunshine,” she says, pulling back into the parking lot, and he just rolls his eyes.

“You’re welcome,” he says, as she comes around to open the door for him and he climbs out with the drinks.

+

She hands the drinks out to everyone when she gets back, all of them crowding around reaching for what they ordered, until Sam pushes them back. Santana glares at them until they all slow down, and she’s just turning to say something to Sam when she notices Ryder reach for one of the two iced drinks they’d picked up and slaps his hand away with a glare.

“That’s Brittany’s,” she says, pointing to the name scrawled on the side facing him. Not that she’d needed to see the name on it to know, she’d made sure to make a note of it because she got Brittany an extra pump of caramel like she always did and didn’t want to get the two drinks confused. “Can’t you read?” 

He looks angry for a moment, his jaw tightening, and then he grabs the other iced macchiato quickly, spinning away and bumping past Jake as he goes. 

“What’s his problem,” she says, and Sam shrugs as he sips at his coffee. 

She’s so busy looking at Sam that she doesn’t notice Brittany come up behind them, Sugar by her side glancing backwards and forwards between them in this way she probably thinks is sneaky. It isn’t, but she just stares back when Santana looks at her, like she’s daring her to say something.

“Is one of those for me?” Brittany says softly, peering at the names, and Santana just points at the macchiato without saying anything.

Brittany takes a sip of it while all four of them stand there awkwardly, and then glances at Santana as a shy smile creeps onto her face. “You remembered my extra caramel.”

Santana swallows. “Obviously,” she says. As if she could forget.

“Thanks,” Brittany says, and looks like she means it too. She hates the idea of her thanking her for anything, and she opens her mouth to answer just as Artie calls them all to order, and whatever she’s going to say dies in her throat. 

She glances at Brittany one final time as she goes to line up with everyone else, putting as much space between them as she can. Sam doesn’t say anything, but his hand snakes out around her shoulders, his thumb rubbing against her skin comfortingly, and she just reaches up and gives his hand a squeeze before they split off to take their places.

+

Pretty much the only thing that saves her from disappearing inside her own head during We Go Together is the ridiculous faces Sam pulls, grinning and spinning her under his arm until she can’t help but laugh and clutch at his shoulder to keep herself upright.

He makes the song about them, and while part of her doesn’t appreciate him hijacking her feelings she’s kind of glad that he has. 

And besides, Rizzo and Kenickie are supposed to be singing to each other right now and it feels easier to just disappear inside the show than think about anything else. 

“Or at the high school dance, where you can find romance—” he sings, dipping her backwards as he does and then twirling her under his arm again.

“Maybe it might be lo-oh-oh-oh-oh-oh-ove!” she sings back, blowing him a kiss and then shoving him away from her, all Rizzo attitude as he looks wounded, clutching at his heart and pouting while the others sing their solos.

Artie yells something at them that she doesn’t even both to make sense of, and Sam just picks her up and throws her over his shoulder, spinning around on the spot until everything’s a blur and she has to bury her face in his shoulder just to keep herself from going dizzy.

+

Sam doesn’t let her down, all through Artie telling them what was good and what needed work, even though she hits his back with the flats of her hands, and hisses basically every mouth joke she can think of at him.

(There’s a lot, she’s been saving them up again.)

Sam turns his head to look at her when Artie finishes, a grin dancing around his giant, oversized mouth. “I’m sorry did you want something?” he says, like he’s only just noticed her.

“If you don’t put me down you’ll be doing the whole show tomorrow on one of those wheelable hospital beds,” she says and watches him shrug, completely unconcerned. 

“I could use the rest after carrying you around,” he says and she gasps theatrically and hits him again before he sets her down.

“Rude,” she says, hitting him again. He pretends to cower, but he ends up laughing and ruining it, wrapping his arm around her again as she tries to shrug away. So what if she doesn’t try that hard. “I can’t work in these conditions!”

“You love these conditions,” he says, and she just rolls her eyes and tries to look sceptical.

“Whatever,” she says. “I didn’t miss you at all,” but she’s smiling when she says it.

+

She knew it was coming, but it doesn’t make it any easier when Brittany appears next to her in the wings as she waits for Marley and Ryder to finish up on stage. 

“You’ve been avoiding me,” Brittany says, and even though it isn’t a question she answers it anyway.

“No, I—”

“Santana,” Brittany says, and she swallows, because she could never lie to Brittany.

“I didn’t want to make this worse,” she says. She can’t even look at her, and she sees Brittany shrug out of the corner of her eye. 

“I think we already did,” Brittany says, with this laugh with no humour in it. Santana hates the way it sounds. 

“I—” Santana swallows, no idea what to say, and then she sees Sam looking at her from the opposite side of the stage waving his hand to try and get her attention. 

“You missed your cue,” Brittany says, as she passes behind her, close enough that Santana can smell her shampoo, before she disappears into the dark.

She just swallows and watches her go, before she stumbles out into the spotlight, trying to remember her lines.

+

Artie gives her a slushy cup to use to mime throwing the milkshake over Sam after he yells at her about missing her cue and she clutches it tightly, the knuckles on her left hand whitening. 

She was feeling bad enough before he gave her a prop that gives basically everyone on the stage PTSD, and she sees Tina flinch when the cup twists in her hand from the edge of the stage, like she’s bracing herself for the ice to hit her. Even Sam rocks backwards in his chair like she’s actually hit him with something when she mimes tossing it at him, and her chest twists at the look on his face. 

“To you from me, Pinky Lee,” she snarls, but there’s a waver in her voice, and Sam blinks quickly before he remembers his line and starts to chase after her.

She tries to pretend they’re both upset about the slushie thing when he catches her but it doesn’t really work, and he just pulls her into a hug, her face pressed into his chest and hidden from the stage by the mirrors, and yells at Artie to wait a second when he tells them he has some notes.

+

She can’t take her eyes off Brittany when she’s dancing with Sam during the hand jive scene, which is good because Rizzo is supposed to be staring over at them, jealous that Cha-Cha is dancing with Kenickie. She keeps messing up the choreography too, getting her hands mixed up and having to start again, even though she and Brittany learnt the hand jive as little kids in her basement, jumping around to the movie on the television. 

Maybe that’s the problem, that she’s not got Brittany to guide her anymore, and she’s just completely lost.

“Santana!” Artie shouts, over the music, and she just stumbles to a stop and comes to the front of the stage, peering out at him. “Can you come out here?”

They’d just gotten to the part where she’s supposed to take Sam away from Brittany, and they both turn to watch her go, jumping down off the stage and climbing the steps up to him.

“What?” she snaps, maybe a little harsher than she should do.

Artie just sighs and turns his chair around to face her. “You were staring at Brittany.”

“I’m supposed to,” she snaps. “Kenickie’s dancing with her.” She thinks maybe she got those two things the wrong way around.

“You’re supposed to be staring at your _boyfriend_ dancing with another girl,” Artie says, pushing his glasses further up his nose. “And it looked like you were staring at your girlfriend dancing with a boy.”

She just folds her arms across her chest and shifts her weight to the side, wishing she could go back onstage and forget this conversation ever happened.

“What’s the difference? Look, I’m supposed to be angry or sad or whatever, and I’m angry and sad and whatever, so just let me dance and you go pick on someone else, okay?”

“It’s confusing for the audience!” Artie says, but she is so done having this conversation.

+

They run through it again, and she thinks she must spend the entire time glaring at Sam—really, she’s just imagining Artie’s face—because when Brittany goes to dance with Ryder and he returns to her, he leans in under the music and whispers, “Are you okay?” 

She just nods, kind of in time with the beat and kind of not, and grips his hands a little tighter than before. 

+

Rehearsal starts to break up and even despite Sam’s efforts at cheering her up she just wants to go home.

She tries to gather her things from by her mirror quickly, scooping everything into her bag before anyone else is done changing out of their costumes, but Sam finds her anyway, back in a blue tshirt and his regular jeans instead of his Kenickie costume. He’s still got the the collar of his jacket turned up though, like he can’t help himself.

She should have known he’d find her. 

“Wanna go out for dinner?” Sam says, tossing her a stick of lipstick she missed. “Some other people were talking about it.”

“Define people,” Santana says, and Sam just looks at her, a smile on his face like a kid caught in a lie. She can’t think of anything she wants to do less than be stuck in a booth with the new kids and Brittany, even if Sam is there to help, so she just shakes her head and swings her bag round onto her shoulder.

“Well how about me and you go and get something to eat,” he says instead. He runs a hand through his hair again, and fixes her with his Kenickie look, “I’ll make an honest woman of ya.”

“Listen fella, if this is a line I ain’t bitin’,” she replies with a grin, and then shakes her head and steps forward to hug him. 

She holds him for longer than she probably should, and he squeezes her back, smiling when she pulls away just enough to turn her head to kiss him, half on the cheek and half on the mouth, chaste compared to earlier, but one she actually means this time. 

Brittany isn’t the only person she misses from Lima.

He goes with her when she tries to break it, prolonging the kiss just for a second, and then laughs when she swats at his arm. He’s got a smudge of her lipstick on his skin, and she just grins and leaves it where it is. 

“I’ll see you tomorrow, Kenick,” she says, throwing her jacket over her shoulder. She kind of wishes she had the sunglasses to complete the look.

“See you around, Rizz,” he replies when he lets her go, and then pulls his comb out of his pocket and runs it through his hair again, until she laughs and turns away.


End file.
